Personal Days

by Ed Park

  When Crease tried to return to his spreadsheet, the arrow remained inert. Then he remembered Wynn’s memo.

  He waited to see what would happen. After about a minute, the arrow rose again, clicked through to the Web, and started calling up sites from his browser history. Each screen lasted for barely a second—assorted news sites, some blog about Indian food, Craigslist, Amazon. Then a succession of unfamiliar URLs filled the address field. Wynn was taking the browser places Crease had never seen. Most of these were horror movie sites. Some were porn sites. One was a fansite constructed around the heavy metal band Dio.

  Finally it was over. The mouse was responding. He found the spreadsheet cell he had been working on. He positioned the cursor and double-clicked. Then his computer crashed.

  II (M) viii: Her research exhausted, Pru was forced to come up with a new theory: Jill had simply made up all of the books quoted in The Jilliad. She hadn’t planned to read up on the rules of the game, for her own future benefit. Nor had she really been critiquing the way these sorts of books were written. It was all a lark, pure invention. And the new haircut was just that: a new haircut. A bad one, too, added Pru.

  They imagined Jill during her last days: bored to tears in Siberia, drowning in misery, aware that her career was grinding itself to dust. She’d messed up somewhere along the way. No one wanted her. No one even wanted to look at her. She was just trying to distract herself before the deathblow came.

  Lizzie asked what this meant, in terms of their plans for The Jilliad. Pru sighed and said that now its value as a work of outsider art was virtually nil. Its main appeal—its heterogeneous, magpie nature, as Pru had once put it—had vanished completely. You could think of it as a piece of fiction, she explained, but no one would want to read it.

  Lizzie didn’t see why that should make any difference. But Laars was happy. The Jilliad wasn’t supposed to be read in the first place, after all. So anyway, I guess I’ll take it back now, he said.

  That’s the other thing I meant to tell you guys, said Pru. It’s not in my desk anymore.

  I don’t understand.

  I mean I think someone stole it.

  II (N) Voice Recognition

  II (N) i: Rumor flowed from one cubicle to the next, like water poured into one corner of an ice tray, spilling over to fill every mold.

  It was said that the Californians were basically going to get rid of everyone, from top to bottom, and sell the machines for scrap.

  It was said that they were doing it gradually for the sheer sadistic pleasure of it, and that they liked to tell companies that a third of the employees would remain. This encouraged amazing feats of self-promotion, all sorts of entertainingly vicious one-upmanship.

  They’d done it before, in Boston, Cleveland, Nashville.

  It was said that the Sprout had been interviewing for jobs as far away as Eugene, Oregon. It was said that Sheila was on the verge of leaving him.

  It was said that K. was fired because she was a lesbian.

  It was said that one of the Californians was also a lesbian, but the kind of lesbian who hated other lesbians.

  It was said that because the company had lost so many people, this year’s holiday party would include guests from the other offices in the building, which had also shed personnel. Maybe the whole building was cursed. This had the makings of the most depressing holiday party ever, held at a new club downtown with a retro-chalet motif.

  Worst idea ever, said Pru.

  So they would share the party venue with a bunch of strangers. Only Crease was happy, for it brought up the distinct possibility that he would finally get to see HABAW for a period exceeding that of an elevator ride.

  II (N) ii: The following Monday, Crease didn’t want to talk to anyone. Rather, he couldn’t talk to anyone. He’d lost his voice over the weekend. A weird bug, he sputtered. There was no pain, just an inability to speak in his normal register. He could produce either a gasp or a very deep monotone, incapable of affect. Both were totally creepy.

  He sent e-mails detailing his condition on an almost hourly basis.

  I wish I’d taken sign language, he wrote. He remembered a movie in which a guy had gone mute and had to write stuff down on a chalkboard he kept around his neck.

  When Pru ran into him in the hall, he tried to speak, but the air caught futilely, a miniature gale welling up in his throat. He went low for one syllable, then switched tracks abruptly. It ended in a disastrous screech. Some of them wanted to comfort him, clap him on the back, but there was the fear of contagion.

  II (N) iii: By late Tuesday afternoon his voice was slightly better, but he still avoided talking. He smiled a lot and nodded. He was turning into the Unnameable. On Wednesday his voice had come back. He talked a little too much, mostly about HABAW and what he’d say if—when—he saw her the following evening. Everyone weighed in on which lines sounded best. Laars and Lizzie said they’d help out if necessary. Crease insisted he’d be fine. He debated what to wear. He thought a beret might provide a rakish touch, but the others asserted their veto power.

  II (N) iv: Grime was keeping a low profile, walking around his desk with his wireless Glottis headset, mumbling away. When Lizzie brought a fax over to him, he raised his eyebrows devilishly but kept muttering, with the unpleasant suggestion that he was dictating hostile little thoughts about her.

  Pru thought it might be useful for some of them to distract him while one person snuck onto his computer and looked at what he was saying, but she couldn’t find any volunteers for the mission.

  II (N) v: Laars claimed to have overheard him say, So this is what I’ve learned from Operation JASON. He tried to linger and listen, but Grime saw him and clammed up.

  II (O): Slippery Slope

  II (O) i: The holiday party was held at Schüssmeisters. Lizzie and Laars took a cab together straight from the office at 6, figuring they’d get in a few drinks and head home early. No one was in the mood to celebrate, but if they hit the open-bar window, it wouldn’t be a total loss. Crease needed to go home and change, as he found his sweater-vest too humdrum, but some suspected it was to pick up his beret. Pru was meeting her date somewhere first and said she’d join them later. Everyone wondered who her date was and suspected she wouldn’t show up. Nobody had spoken to Jonah all day but when Lizzie e-mailed he replied he’d come by later. He needed to finish some schoolwork.

  I don’t want to freak you out, Lizzie was saying to Laars in the cab, but I was thinking that maybe it’s not a good thing that K. was fired.

  How could it be a bad thing? Lizzie could be too forgiving sometimes. It was endearing but exasperating. K. was the one who fired Jenny, Laars said. K. can pretty much rot in hell.

  Yes, but don’t you see? They’ve moved from the Js to the Ks. And there are no other Ks. I think we’re next.

  Lizzie was like the queen of unwanted information.

  II (O) ii: When Lizzie and Laars arrived there was a grand total of four other people milling around. They kept an eye out for Jules. This must have been his new place—the trisyllabic name, the ’70s-lodge decor. Ski poles and antlers decorated the walls, and period fondue sets were being set up on the back table. The music was a little off, though: a dour hiphop number with half the words bleeped out.

  They ordered drinks at the bar, or rather the T-Bar, and went over to meet the four people at the center of the room. One of them was the bar’s designer, who was holding a pair of goggles and explaining the philosophy behind Schüssmeisters. An accountant from the telemarketing place and her husband feigned interest.

  The fourth person was Grime.

  Ever since the advent of the swipe cards, Laars had wanted to make Grime confess to his duplicity. But upon seeing him, he couldn’t find the words. What was done was done—and if Grime was beginning to call the shots, it was better not to provoke him.

  Laars was also reminded of Grime’s religious experience. He just wanted to keep as far away as possible.

  Lizzie was looking at
the ground like she’d lost an earring. The room was filling, the volume level rising by the minute. She wondered if she’d see Jack II or Jill or Jenny, though of course they hadn’t been invited.

  Laars entertained an absurd five-second fantasy that Maxine would appear and he’d sweep her off her feet, or vice versa. Laars, I’ve always thought you were totally hot. Was that what she would say? He couldn’t get the voice right, couldn’t hear her in his head anymore. Laars, I’m so happy you’re here. A little squeal of delight. No. Yes.

  He’d ended the vow of chastity a while ago, of course, though in practical terms this did not mean much. He went to the men’s room to practice smiling. He popped out his mouth guard. Oh Laars, I love it when you smile. There was a restroom attendant, and Laars knew he’d feel obliged to tip him at least a buck, though all he was doing was looking in the mirror. So he washed his hands with a great quantity of soap and accepted not one but two paper towels from the attendant. He patted the mouth guard dry and put it down by the sink. Shockingly, he didn’t have any singles in his wallet—just a twenty. He apologized for the lack of small bills and departed without leaving a tip. The attendant didn’t say anything—to him, Laars no longer existed.

  Laars wondered if he’d soon have to take a job like this one, now that the firing squad had worked through the Js and the Ks. For karma he should have left his twenty but realized he might need it later for a cab.

  II (O) iii: Crease and Jonah arrived at the same time. When Crease gave his coat to the girl, he revealed his bravura wardrobe change: a contemporary iteration of an old-fashioned skiing sweater, in red and green, complete with a huge white snowflake knitted on the chest. It was the sartorial equivalent of comfort food—the perfect complement to the Schüssmeisters aesthetic.

  Except that Jonah was wearing the same thing, the vintage version. He’d been buying stuff from thrift stores lately, checked work shirts, varsity jackets. His beard was amazing.

  Crease contemplated cabbing it home and changing to his previous outfit but decided to stand his ground. There was room enough for two ’70s-redolent snowflake sweaters. But his confidence was seeping away and his throat started feeling funny again.

  The girl brought back his coat-check stub and he could barely gasp a thank you.

  II (O) iv: Laars said he was getting déjà vu. He couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe every holiday party recalled holiday parties of yore. Lizzie said she experienced something like déjà vu but not exactly—more like an out-of-body experience in which she saw herself talking and nodding and drinking, and thought that it wasn’t real, that it was a dream or even some play that she’d been assigned to review. She had problems with the dialogue and the lighting, but some of the costumes weren’t bad. In lieu of her traditional pens, tonight a dark lacquered chopstick held her hair in place.

  Was Grime already trashed? He was having volume issues, and slurring issues. They’d never really seen him drunk. He was telling Lizzie and Laars and two random oldsters from the eighth floor that he sometimes got the urge to say things that were entirely inappropriate, just blurt them out for no reason. Sometimes, Grime said, he wondered what it would be like to walk around the office naked, or to talk only in Spanish, or to impersonate a woman.

  Normally this would be TMI, but Laars and Lizzie counted themselves as getting off easy. The eighth-floor strangers were nowhere to be seen, having backed away and fled for their lives at some point during the oration.

  Everyone was afraid of Grime.

  II (O) v: More people entered Schüssmeisters, to persistent sluggish reggae. The Sprout took off his hat and made a beeline for the T-Bar. They glimpsed Pru shedding her coat and handing it to her date, who took off his fedora and went to check everything in. He was bald, wearing bright red suspenders. He looked friendly and repulsive, like a giant baby. He looked familiar. Laars studied them as they went to fetch drinks, and suddenly it hit him: Pru’s here with the Original Jack!

  Crease brooded at the bar, silently cursing Jonah and the copycat sweater. The Original Jack gave him a bear hug and they talked. From time to time the Original Jack would tilt his face to the ceiling and laugh. Laars observed all this. Crease could be amusing but he was never that amusing. Pru wasn’t even laughing. She did look unbelievably great, a trick of the light perhaps, but a good trick.

  II (O) vi: Buddy! said the Original Jack upon seeing Laars, which made Laars suspect that he’d forgotten his name.

  Laars received a slap on the back followed by a bear hug. Then the Original Jack gave Lizzie an even bigger bear hug. Lizzie was never a fan of the Original Jack, and she didn’t so much return the hug as let it wash over her.

  The bad thing about the hug was that the Original Jack’s beefy right arm swung too far beyond Lizzie and his college ring hit Laars in the mouth. It made a dreadful noise, like a mug dropped in a sink.

  Over the Original Jack’s apologies, Laars began to say he was fine. Alas, he couldn’t quite formulate the sentence, as part of his tooth had fallen out.

  Oh, said Pru. Oh wow. Oh no. She gave him her cocktail napkin and went to get a hundred more. Blood trickled down his chin as his upper lip ballooned. He went to the restroom to check out the damage, the bit of tooth still rolling around in his mouth. He secured it to one side with his tongue. Did dentists reattach teeth, or did they just give you a whole new one? Blood dotted the sink. The attendant was in no hurry to help. He was taking his time, groaning at the prospect of significant scrubbing with no promise of a tip.

  II (O) vii: It was good to see that guy but I feel shitty about his tooth, said the Original Jack. You know who it would be a blast to see? Maxine. The Maximizer. Where she at?

  She got fired, said Lizzie.

  Right.

  The same time as Jenny.

  Bummer.

  And Jack, the other Jack, added Pru.

  Question of the evening: Now that Jack II no longer worked with them, could the Original Jack go back to being plain old Jack?

  II (O) viii: Crease went to the men’s room to inspect his throat, not sure what he was hoping or dreading to see. He was so absorbed in his recurring malady that he didn’t see Laars leaving for the night, hand pressed to mouth, his lingering chastity in no immediate danger.

  Crease croaked a request for mouthwash to the attendant, who produced a bottle even before he stopped talking. After freshening up, Crease reached in his pocket for a tip, then realized that touching money would compromise the germless state of his freshly scrubbed hands, possibly slowing the healing process.

  II (O) ix: Pru spotted Jules mumbling in the corner and waved him over. He was unrecognizable, wearing tinted glasses and a ski hat and chewing nervously on a toothpick. He looked a little like the character who gets killed in the first few minutes of a cop show, to be discovered in the morning by a fresh-faced paralegal on her way to the subway. The Original Jack gave him a minimalist hug. Lizzie shook his hand, which felt weirdly cold and dry. Like Crease, Jules wasn’t talking much. He spoke in short sentences, tried to get by with nods and gestures. The Original Jack explained to people that Jules’s therapist, the strict Brentian, now wants him to think only in French, even when they’re not in session.

  It’s pretty radical, said the Original Jack, clearly impressed.

  The whole thing was confusing to Grime, the newcomer, who wandered by, twirling his martini glass by its stem. You! he shouted at Jules, who jumped and maneuvered behind the Original Jack’s body. Grime laughed and caught Lizzie’s eye and began, she thought, to hypnotize her. Was he beckoning her to follow him? Yes. No. Yes. Lizzie was bored, but was she that bored? She shifted her weight from one small foot to the other.

  II (O) x: Look, said Pru to the Original Jack. She pointed to a slender figure.

  The pretty one?

  I think that’s HABAW.

  HA-wha?

  As Pru explained Crease’s obsession, her date clapped a hand to his forehead. He knew her from night school. They’d been in the same
advanced statistics class over the summer. I should totally hook Tracy up with Crease, said the Original Jack. It would be his good deed going into the new year.

  As he went to greet Tracy, the Sprout came over. Pru wanted to follow the Original Jack but thought it would be rude to dash away from her boss.

  The Sprout started telling her a story about Jonah, but then stopped.

  I feel like we’ve had this conversation before, he said.

  When?

  I don’t know. Last year.

  II (O) xi: Are you Chris? I’m Tracy.

  Was he dreaming? What was going on?

  Your friend Jack said you used to be a teacher? she said, indicating the Original Jack. I used to teach, too. Never any good at it! Crease looked back at the Original Jack, who was over by the bar, making enthusiastic head motions and giving Crease the double thumbs-up.

  Crease gulped. It hit him. That exquisite British accent—that perfect face! HABAW!

  Unreal, tingling joy clashed with sheer terror. Here she was, talking to him. Teacher—what was she saying? She used to be a teacher? Like him? Maybe she said preacher. The words were simple, he knew, yet he could not crack their meaning. He took a breath, just managing to fend off a wheezing bout, and called up one of the two dozen perfect opening lines that he’d developed over the past few months. He put down his drink and opened his mouth confidently and said: HHHHHHHHHHHhhhHHH!

  II (O) xii: Lizzie returned to where Pru and Jonah were talking.

  What’s the matter? asked Pru.

  I think—I think today was the day.

  For what?

  For Grime—his—you know.

  She stared ahead at nothing, at the lights in the window. I think he’s trying to make me crazy so I’ll resign.

  They saw Grime heading to the exit, slowly, even hobbling a little. People gave him a wide berth.

  Lizzie said, I wish this year would end already.

  I think you said that last year, Pru said.

  II (P): I Don’t Understand

  II (P) i: The next morning people got to the office late, some so late that it wasn’t even morning. It was a holiday tradition. But this time, for the first time, there was that evil little swipe-card box waiting for them on the wall beside the elevator.